Supporters of the LGBT community protest in Nairobi, Kenya, against anti-gay legislation in Uganda.
Photograph: Dai Kurokawa/EPA

A rapid response fund backed by Sir Elton John that provides emergency support to LGBT communities under threat around the world has received 235 applications in its first month of operation.

The money is funding safe houses, legal fees and medical support in 29 countries, according to a report on its work to support HIV services, published ahead of World Aids Day on Thursday.

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The $4m (£3.2m) fund – launched in October and run by the International HIV/Aids Alliance with support from the Elton John Aids Foundation, the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) and the UN – issues grants of up to $20,000 to civil society organisations that represent LGBT people and men who have sex with men (MSM) in the countries where these communities are at high risk of discrimination.

Elton John said each request for help made it “horribly clear just how much LGBT human rights abuses serve as a barrier to ending Aids. Now more than ever it’s time for government leaders and philanthropists to join efforts to overcome the anti-LGBT stigma, discrimination and violence that is making the HIV epidemic worse.”

Among the fund’s beneficiaries is an Ethiopian HIV advocacy group working with LGBT people and men who have sex with men (MSM). One of its members who says that he fled to London following persecution told the Guardian that the situation for gay people in Ethiopia had deteriorated in the past few years as civil society came under pressure from the authorities.

“The starting point is that Ethiopian government officials say, ‘There are no gay people in our country’, but there have also been continual crackdowns by the authorities on those of us who are attempting to organise in civil society,” said the man, who has chosen to remain anonymous.

“We started to organise in a very low – under the radar – way and have been distributing condoms and lubricants and doing sexual health training. Because the government refused to accept that we exist, the result is that MSM people are not recognised as a community within the HIV national strategy. So, at the end of the day, while the funding we have received allowed us to continue with some of our projects, it is also just about our very survival.”

Ethiopian authorities deny that LGBT people have been subject to a crackdown and insist all are treated according to their needs when it comes to HIV and Aids policies.

Elsewhere, an organisation providing one of the only confidential sexual health services to the MSM community in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was able to fend off closure as a result of a grant from the fund that enabled it to replenish its stocks and continue with HIV testing and treatment services.

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In Uganda, a transgender woman who was named in media coverage of a police raid on a Gay Pride event was helped to find secure and safe accommodation and have her HIV medication reinstated. In Kingston, Jamaica, emergency shelter, medical packages and food were provided to dozens of homeless LGBT people whose belongings and homes had been destroyed by Hurricane Matthew.

Shaun Mellors, director for knowledge and influence at the International HIV/Aids Alliance, said that while the report, published on Wednesday, highlighted the needs of many who were being persecuted, there had also been a greater realisation and understanding of LGBT people, who were becoming more vocal about their rights.

“We also know that if we are ever going to get close to the rhetoric of ending Aids that we do need to ensure that those who are affected by HIV are able to access services without being stigmatised,” he said.

“What they are being confronted with and challenged by is, in many cases, a political agenda strongly influenced by and with funding sources from the global north, particularly when it comes to some of the more fundamentalist religious organisations that are engaging with Africa.”